1896-1945

Jaromir Funke became a freelance photographer after abandoning medical and legal studies.  He was intellectually drawn to cubism and constructivism, which he sought to interpret through photography.  His work was informed by Man Ray’s otherworldly photograms and by the constructivist geometries of Frantisek Drtikol.  A member of the Czech avant garde during the ‘20s and ‘30s, he cofounded the Czech Photographic Society with Josef Sudek and Adolf Schneeberger.  Funke taught photography at the School of Arts and Crafts, Bratislava, and continued to publish the avant-garde journal Photographic Horizons for several years after Czechoslovakia fell under Nazi occupation.